“Terror” Tweet Sent To American Airlines Leads To Arrest

A 14-year-old Dutch girl has been arrested in connection with a tweet sent over the weekend to American Airlines, threatening “something really big” on June 1. American Airlines quickly responded to the tweet informing the girl that they would be forwarding her information on to the FBI. The girl replied that it was only a joke, but that did not prevent Dutch authorities from arresting her on Monday.

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A 14-year-old Dutch girl who allegedly tweeted a terrorist threat to American Airlines has been arrested.

The teen found herself at the centre of a Twitter firestorm after a message was sent from the account @queendemetriax_ yesterday.

The girl, whose profile says she is called Sarah, wrote: “Hello, my name is Ibrahim and I am from Afghanistan.

“I am part of Al Qaeda and on June 1 I am gonna do something really big bye.”

American Airlines quickly replied saying it would forward the threat and her IP address to the FBI.

The girl panicked and desperately tried to reassure the world in a series of tweets she was “just kidding”.

But not before the Twitter meltdown had seen her attract more than 20,000 new followers.

The account has since been deleted.

Now Dutch police say they have arrested a 14-year-old girl at her home in Rotterdam over the message.

A spokesperson told Business Insider: “We’re not in a state that we can communicate any state of charges at this point.

“We just thought it was necessary to bring this out mostly because of the fact that it caused a great deal of interest on the Internet.”

The saga continued overnight when Sarah tweeted a lengthy message claiming she wrote the tweet as a joke a month ago, but didn’t send it because it “wasn’t a good idea.”

However, she says her Twitter “tripped” and sent the draft of the earlier tweet without her knowledge.